Search Forums

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: Theistic beliefs are not rationally justified

Originally Posted by Squatch347

We don't?

No, we don't have any examples of the change from non-existence to existence which is required for P1. Further, even if we accept that the rearranging of atoms is an information creation process, which we don't since there was information there before, the creation of information which you claim takes place when wood is changed to chair is not comparable to the change from non-existence to existence which you are applying in P1.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

If we go from the state in picture 1 to the state in picture 2, a chair has been created.

Again, this is equivocating between the usage of "created" in the change from wood to chair and the usage in P1 of "begin to exist" meaning a change from non-existence to existence. If you want to use the wood-chair comparison for the universe, you need to offer the "wood", or material from which the universe came.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

The rearranging of atoms is an information creation process.

The information process in wood-chair is not comparable to the change from non-existence to existence which you try to apply to the universe in P1.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Thus we cannot simply dismiss that information and arrangement creation as irrelevant as it is fundamentally described in thermodynamics as an underlying law for the universe.

Sure we can, and we do. Information creation is simply not comparable to matter/energy/time/space/reality/universe creation.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

What's more, we can reject your objection further with the example of virutal particles (which cause Hawking Radiation). These are particles that pop into existence at the quantum level and after a brief period annihilate themselves. These particles don't appear out of nothing as is sometimes described, but come from probabilistic fluctuations to the quantum foam that exists at the Planck distance level of the universe.

For all practical purposes, virtual particles exist only in the mathematics of the models used to describe the measurements of real particles. They don't exist in the same sense as the existence following the change from non-existence which you are trying to apply in P1. Further, even if we accepted virtual particles as changing from demonstrably and actually not-existing to demonstrably and actually existing, this would still not be comparable to the change from non-existence to existence which you are applying to the universe, if for the sole reason that the virtual particles would begin to exist inside this universe. The way in which you are trying to apply P1 has no universe into which this universe began to exist. You're grasping at virtual straws, here, Squatch.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Thus, we have two examples of the causation proposed in my argument.

No, we have two examples which prove yet again why you should leave the scientisting to real scientists. If all you can offer as evidence that anything at all can actually begin to exist is "creation of information when wood is changed to chair", and "virtual particles pop into existence at the quantum level", your confidence in P1 is in no way rationally justified.

I don't see why that would be the case. Given, for example, quantum entanglement the cause and effect are simultaneous, no linear time is required for the state change of the particles. We can even remove the state change here and retain the causation. If particle 1 is spinning downward, it causes particle 2 to spin upward to retain information symmetry. No time is taken in that sentence, it is a static description that requires causation.

The problem with your example is that both the cause and effect are present within space-time, which makes it yet another invalid comparison. Even the word "simultaneous" is itself necessarily temporal. By removing time in the case of the cause and effect for the universe you are placing the cause in a state without temporal properties and the effect in a state with temporal properties at t=0. All you're doing is making nonsensical statements devoid of any actual meaning. Again, it's best that you leave the scientisting to actual scientists. That's the only way we'll get to the bottom of this.

Re: Theistic beliefs are not rationally justified

Again, this is equivocating between the usage of "created" in the change from wood to chair and the usage in P1 of "begin to exist" meaning a change from non-existence to existence.

I'm not sure you understand the term equivocating here. Equivocation is when you use a word that has two different definitions and your argument conflates those two definitions.

Take for example, the classic example of the word "bank."

P1: Otters live in banks
P2: Banks store money
C: Otters store money

Obviously fallacious because we are using two dramatically different defintions of the word bank (specifically P1 uses definition 1, P2 uses definition 2).

That isn't occuring here. The creation of a chair specifically fulfills the only (non-archiac) definition for that word. You can't have an equivocation fallacy if there is only one definition and it describes the activity.

Take a look at the examples:

‘he created a thirty-acre lake’
‘over 170 jobs were created’
‘In its draft resolutions, the ANC called on all levels of government to create projects that generated jobs.’
‘This deliberate thrust for creating an enabling environment brings about the shift in growth strategy.’
‘From Spain he brought a translator who created a Latin summary of Aristotle's biological and zoological works.’
‘Saying that humans, being creatures of flesh, could not obey the law was to say, in effect, that God made a bad job of creating them.’
‘In an effort to justify their existence they create documents that only a fool would sign without modifying it.’
‘The company plans to centralise its business by moving into the large distribution warehouse in Kettlestring Lane, creating an extra 30 jobs.’
‘Plans to rejuvenate the River Eden could create dozens of new jobs and bring millions of pounds into the local economy, according to a new report.’
‘How far can we use the imagination to create a videogame that brings someone to nirvana?’
‘Scotland can demonstrate that plans to revitalise health and safety in the workplace can be made a reality by creating real partnerships to bring the accident figures down.’
‘The system, if adopted, is predicted to bring in revenues of nearly £50 billion and create two million jobs.’
‘It effectively created a new bank which has brought us back into the mainstream of competing with the big Scottish banks.’
‘With a wide array of workshop topics, Career Services has information on every aspect of the job hunt, from creating a resume to selling your skills in an interview.’
‘This new recording features two dozen carols brought together to create a concert performance.’
‘If granted, it will generate power for thousands of homes, creating hundreds of jobs in the Doncaster area.’
‘His paintings are attempts at getting outside of time, at creating timeless icons of existence.’
‘Chaos is a calm Goddess, who loves to work with Existence to create things and let them run amok on their own.’
‘We are going to create new jobs from bringing in new products and services to the community.’
‘It was this love of generations yet unborn that brought God to create the universe.’
‘Mayo County Council have done an exemplary job in creating this trail and bringing the visual arts to the people.’
‘At the same time, the Commission was not brought into being to create a historical document.’

Literally none of the examples used in the dictionary follow the strict interpretation you mention. They all follow the informational focused creation process I mentioned.

Originally Posted by Future

Information creation is simply not comparable to matter/energy/time/space/reality/universe creation.

You are confusing differences in scale with differences in kind.

Building a wooden chair is nothing like the complexity of building a Virginia class submarine, but that doesn't mean both aren't building something.

How, exactly, do the two concepts materially differ?

Originally Posted by future

For all practical purposes, virtual particles exist only in the mathematics of the models used to describe the measurements of real particles. They don't exist in the same sense as the existence following the change from non-existence which you are trying to apply in P1.

Well, let's see what actual physicists say.

Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, provides this answer.
Virtual particles are indeed real particles. Quantum theory predicts that every particle spends some time as a combination of other particles in all possible ways. These predictions are very well understood and tested.

Quantum mechanics allows, and indeed requires, temporary violations of conservation of energy, so one particle can become a pair of heavier particles (the so-called virtual particles), which quickly rejoin into the original particle as if they had never been there. If that were all that occurred we would still be confident that it was a real effect because it is an intrinsic part of quantum mechanics, which is extremely well tested, and is a complete and tightly woven theory--if any part of it were wrong the whole structure would collapse.
...
Thus virtual particles are indeed real and have observable effects that physicists have devised ways of measuring. Their properties and consequences are well established and well understood consequences of quantum mechanics.

No, we have two examples which prove yet again why you should leave the scientisting to real scientists.

You mean like the ones I've quoted throughout this thread? Or are you engaging in a no true scottsman fallacy?

Remind me again, which one of the two of us actually has physics training?

Originally Posted by future

The problem with your example is that both the cause and effect are present within space-time, which makes it yet another invalid comparison.

Welcome to a begging the question fallacy. You are insisting that the only support for the premise is the premise itself. Sorry man, that isn't a valid rebuttal. If I were to say, "prove the sky is blue" and you offered evidence based on light refraction to which I object "those don't count because they aren't the actual sky" it would be dismissed out of hand as dumb objection. That is literally the same argument structure you've employed here.

I should take a step back and discuss the consequences of rejecting premise 1 as you have. You can either mean: a) things cannot begin to exist, they must always exist or b) things can begin to exist without a cause.

A is clearly not a tenable position given the consensus scientific opinion that this universe, and its dimensions did, in fact begin to exist. B is equally as bizarre as it posits a universe where things can begin to exist at random, or must always exist because they don't need a cause to begin existing. This is, essentially, appealing either to an eternal universe rejected by physicists or a fantasy universe of magic where things begin to exist on their own.

There is a reason that the principle of causation isn't really disputed by philosophers or physicists (good luck finding one that agrees with your point), because it is fundamentally nonsensical to reject. Your attempt to limit the principle to our universe only is a remnant of 1950s thinking that was long ago abandoned in physics. It is also a pretty classic example of a taxicab fallacy. You take the principle as far as it suits you, then abandon it with no explanatory reason.

"Suffering lies not with inequality, but with dependence." -Voltaire

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” -G.K. Chesterton

Re: Theistic beliefs are not rationally justified

Originally Posted by Squatch347

I'm not sure you understand the term equivocating here.

Equivocation:
"the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself"

You are using the "creation" of a chair (meaning the change from wood to a chair - something existed and then something else existed, the process between them being called "creation") as a comparison and proof that the universe was created (meaning the change from the universe not existing to the universe existing - nothing existing and then something existing, the process between them also being called "creation"). Your use of creation with the chair and the universe is ambiguous, as the processes are not the same.

If you want to commit to using wood-chair as proof of "creation", then you by definition are saying that the universe resulted from the same kind of process as wood-chair.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

You mean like the ones I've quoted throughout this thread? Or are you engaging in a no true scottsman fallacy?

No, I mean the two examples you provided as support for the creation of the universe (wood-chair, which isn't valid since it's a different kind of creation, and virtual particles, which aren't valid since their creation isn't actually observed)

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Remind me again, which one of the two of us actually has physics training?

Oh that's right, I forgot that ODN was where real physicists came to suss out the truth behind the origins of the universe. Really, Squatch, such a statement from you only highlights how little weight KCA actually carries.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Welcome to a begging the question fallacy. You are insisting that the only support for the premise is the premise itself.

No, I'm insisting that you have the intellectual honesty to make valid comparisons when grasping at straws for support of P1. As it stands, we have no observed instances of things beginning to exist in the sense that you are attempting to use it in your argument. All you've offered is observed instances of things beginning to exist (in the case of wood-chair), and not-observed instances of things beginning to exist (in the case of virtual particles, only their effects have been observed), both of which take place inside an already-existing universe. Therefore, P1 remains unsupported and incoherent.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

I should take a step back and discuss the consequences of rejecting premise 1 as you have. You can either mean: a) things cannot begin to exist, they must always exist or b) things can begin to exist without a cause.

No, the consequence of rejecting P1 is that one maintains rational skepticism. No further conclusions must be reached if we don't even know what you're talking about. Please provide a coherent explanation for P1 in the sense that you are using it with the universe.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

the consensus scientific opinion that this universe, and its dimensions did, in fact begin to exist

Do you mean there are scientists which say that there was nothing and then there was the universe? Please provide a coherent explanation for P1.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Your attempt to limit the principle to our universe only is a remnant of 1950s thinking that was long ago abandoned in physics.

I have not attempted to limit any principles to our universe only. I've explained why your use of the terms is ambiguous and why your examples fail to serve as support for even just your 1st premise.

Re: Theistic beliefs are not rationally justified

You are using the "creation" of a chair (meaning the change from wood to a chair - something existed and then something else existed, the process between them being called "creation")

How does my example (the creation of the chair) not meet the definition offered?

Bring (something) into existence.

Again, take a look at the examples. Is the dictionary wrong in using the word creation here?

‘he created a thirty-acre lake’
‘over 170 jobs were created’
‘In its draft resolutions, the ANC called on all levels of government to create projects that generated jobs.’
‘This deliberate thrust for creating an enabling environment brings about the shift in growth strategy.’
‘From Spain he brought a translator who created a Latin summary of Aristotle's biological and zoological works.’
‘Saying that humans, being creatures of flesh, could not obey the law was to say, in effect, that God made a bad job of creating them.’
‘In an effort to justify their existence they create documents that only a fool would sign without modifying it.’
‘The company plans to centralise its business by moving into the large distribution warehouse in Kettlestring Lane, creating an extra 30 jobs.’
‘Plans to rejuvenate the River Eden could create dozens of new jobs and bring millions of pounds into the local economy, according to a new report.’
‘How far can we use the imagination to create a videogame that brings someone to nirvana?’
‘Scotland can demonstrate that plans to revitalise health and safety in the workplace can be made a reality by creating real partnerships to bring the accident figures down.’
‘The system, if adopted, is predicted to bring in revenues of nearly £50 billion and create two million jobs.’
‘It effectively created a new bank which has brought us back into the mainstream of competing with the big Scottish banks.’
‘With a wide array of workshop topics, Career Services has information on every aspect of the job hunt, from creating a resume to selling your skills in an interview.’
‘This new recording features two dozen carols brought together to create a concert performance.’
‘If granted, it will generate power for thousands of homes, creating hundreds of jobs in the Doncaster area.’
‘His paintings are attempts at getting outside of time, at creating timeless icons of existence.’
‘Chaos is a calm Goddess, who loves to work with Existence to create things and let them run amok on their own.’
‘We are going to create new jobs from bringing in new products and services to the community.’
‘It was this love of generations yet unborn that brought God to create the universe.’
‘Mayo County Council have done an exemplary job in creating this trail and bringing the visual arts to the people.’
‘At the same time, the Commission was not brought into being to create a historical document.’

Originally Posted by future

If you want to commit to using wood-chair as proof of "creation", then you by definition are saying that the universe resulted from the same kind of process as wood-chair.

Moving the goal posts fallacy. You've shifted from giving examples of something being created to something being created by the same process. Surely creating a lake and creating a chair don't involve the same process, but both (according to the dictionary) are both creations.

Originally Posted by future

No, I mean the two examples you provided as support for the creation of the universe (wood-chair, which isn't valid since it's a different kind of creation, and virtual particles, which aren't valid since their creation isn't actually observed)

Including where I quote a physicist showing that your understanding of virtual particles isn't correct?

Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, provides this answer.
Virtual particles are indeed real particles. Quantum theory predicts that every particle spends some time as a combination of other particles in all possible ways. These predictions are very well understood and tested.

Quantum mechanics allows, and indeed requires, temporary violations of conservation of energy, so one particle can become a pair of heavier particles (the so-called virtual particles), which quickly rejoin into the original particle as if they had never been there. If that were all that occurred we would still be confident that it was a real effect because it is an intrinsic part of quantum mechanics, which is extremely well tested, and is a complete and tightly woven theory--if any part of it were wrong the whole structure would collapse.
...
Thus virtual particles are indeed real and have observable effects that physicists have devised ways of measuring. Their properties and consequences are well established and well understood consequences of quantum mechanics.

But while the virtual particles are briefly part of our world they can interact with other particles, and that leads to a number of tests of the quantum-mechanical predictions about virtual particles. The first test was understood in the late 1940s. In a hydrogen atom an electron and a proton are bound together by photons (the quanta of the electromagnetic field). Every photon will spend some time as a virtual electron plus its antiparticle, the virtual positron, since this is allowed by quantum mechanics as described above. The hydrogen atom has two energy levels that coincidentally seem to have the same energy. But when the atom is in one of those levels it interacts differently with the virtual electron and positron than when it is in the other, so their energies are shifted a tiny bit because of those interactions. That shift was measured by Willis Lamb and the Lamb shift was born, for which a Nobel Prize was eventually awarded.

Quarks are particles much like electrons, but different in that they also interact via the strong force. Two of the lighter quarks, the so-called "up" and "down" quarks, bind together to make up protons and neutrons. The "top" quark is the heaviest of the six types of quarks. In the early 1990s it had been predicted to exist but had not been directly seen in any experiment. At the LEP collider at the European particle physics laboratory CERN, millions of Z bosons--the particles that mediate neutral weak interactions--were produced and their mass was very accurately measured. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts the mass of the Z boson, but the measured value differed a little. This small difference could be explained in terms of the time the Z spent as a virtual top quark if such a top quark had a certain mass. When the top quark mass was directly measured a few years later at the Tevatron collider at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, the value agreed with that obtained from the virtual particle analysis, providing a dramatic test of our understanding of virtual particles.

Another very good test some readers may want to look up, which we do not have space to describe here, is the Casimir effect, where forces between metal plates in empty space are modified by the presence of virtual particles.

ibid

Originally Posted by future

Oh that's right, I forgot that ODN was where real physicists came to suss out the truth behind the origins of the universe.

Who ever said it was? I pointed out the incredibly broad error in your statement about leaving it to actual physicists.

1) I'm the only one citing physicists here. You are relying on your own understanding.

2) I have physics training, you do not.

Now, I'm happy to drop all of that and discuss the mechanics in detail (I've already offered peer-reviewed papers on them), but I think you might get a bit overwhelmed.

Originally Posted by future

No, the consequence of rejecting P1 is that one maintains rational skepticism.

You cannot hold that both a and ~a are valid. If you say that a is not a true statement you must, be definition, be saying that ~a is. That is foundational critical thinking. If, "the sky is blue" is not true, then "the sky is not blue" has to be true.

So by saying that premise 1 isn't true, you are de facto, accepting one of these two positions, so which is it?

A: things cannot begin to exist, they must always exist
B: things can begin to exist without a cause.

"Suffering lies not with inequality, but with dependence." -Voltaire

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” -G.K. Chesterton

Re: Theistic beliefs are not rationally justified

Originally Posted by Squatch347

How does my example (the creation of the chair) not meet the definition offered?

All your examples are cases of creatio ex materia, meaning creation from something or somewhere which already exists. Or more accurately, they're examples of things beginning to exist in an already-existing universe.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Moving the goal posts fallacy. You've shifted from giving examples of something being created to something being created by the same process.

No, I'd actually rather you refrain from using the term "created" at all, since P1 is "begin to exist" and will no longer respond to statements using "created". Please provide a coherent definition of "begin to exist".

Originally Posted by Squatch347

Surely creating a lake and creating a chair don't involve the same process, but both (according to the dictionary) are both creations.

Again, your examples "begin to exist" in an already-existing universe. Are you saying that the universe began to exist in an already-existing universe? If not, then you are using "begin to exist" ambiguously. Please provide a coherent definition of the terms used in P1.

Originally Posted by Squatch347

So by saying that premise 1 isn't true, you are de facto, accepting one of these two positions, so which is it?

I'm not saying P1 isn't true, I'm saying I reject it because it isn't even coherent in the context you are using it. Please explain what you mean by "begin to exist" when you say the universe began to exist. It would also help if you defined how you are using the term "universe", to avoid further ambiguity inherent in KCA.